Legal Clips, [August 2007]After months of debate, the school board of Broward County, Florida, has ordered the Ben Gamla Charter School to temporarily suspend its Hebrew curriculum while a religious studies professor scrutinizes the language program. Critics say the Hebrew-language charter school—with its kosher meals, rabbinical director, and lessons on Jewish culture—is a taxpayer-funded religious school. But experts say you have to look closer than a mere mention of God in a textbook to determine whether a deity is being discussed academically or taught as dogma. "The fact that the word God is somewhere in the curriculum doesn’t mean that there’s a violation," says school board attorney Marylin Batista-McNamara. "This really should not be controversial," adds former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, who helped establish the school. "We said Jewish history and Jewish culture, and it hit a raw nerve in people." Florida’s traditional public schools teach children about Jewish life before and after the Revelation, Zionism, and emergence of the modern Jewish state. They even teach Hebrew. The lessons are taught without affirming religious beliefs.
District officials say each of the school’s Hebrew programs brought before the board went beyond a simple reference to God and discussed Jewish history in a religious context. The third curriculum named several websites as additional resources, one of which discusses "how to be spiritual through culture, and God’s revelation to ancient Israel through its original linguistic context," says school board member Jennifer Gottlieb, who during a board meeting logged on from the dias and visited the web page. This prompted the board to put off approving the curriculum until it could be scrutinized by Nathan Katz, a religious studies professor the district has hired to advise them about Ben Gamla. The stipulation: Ben Gamla can teach only reading, writing, and arithmetic until the next school board meeting.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel By Akilah Johnson
[Editor’s Note: Additional coverage by the New York Times and by the Associated Press is at the first two links below. The Times reports that the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida says it remains to be seen whether the school will cross the line and that a lawsuit is a possibility. South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo writes that these questions should have been resolved before the school board granted the school its charter in the first place but that Mr. Deutsch is complying with the board’s wishes because he "knows thumbing his nose at local school officials isn’t the best foundation for a productive partnership." The New York Jewish Week reports on fears among Jewish private schools nationwide about Mr. Deutsch’s plans to open 100 such charter schools, and the New York Times reports that the school’s organizers claim their critics really are "mostly defenders of Jewish day schools that stand to lose students and tuition money." If so, one wonders what position such critics have taken as to the appropriateness of taxpayer funded vouchers for religious schools. The Jewish Week quotes Mr. Deutsch as insisting that competition from charter schools "is going to make [Jewish day schools] stronger and better; they are going to have to work harder."
The New York Times also notes that the Broward County debate parallels one in New York City over a new public school that will focus on Arabic language and culture, and the Pioneer Press reports at the last link that a popular Minneapolis/St. Paul area charter school that focuses on Arabic language and culture is about to open a second branch.]
New York Times By Abby Goodnough
NSBA School Law pages on Ben Gamla school
Mayo column
New York Jewish Week By Stewart Ain
St. Paul Pioneer Press By Liala Helal